


That Blue Alien Voodoo You Do (Please Stop, Begs Harry)

by cadoodle



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dimension Travel, F/M, Gen, Gotta set the scene folks, Master of Death Harry Potter, Slow burn Harry/Daisy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-19 22:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11907681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadoodle/pseuds/cadoodle
Summary: Phil Coulson died. He was supposed to stay dead. Instead, he went to Tahiti. Death is, uh, not happy about it.(This fic mostly operates within the realm of canon)





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a sunny day, which makes the sunglasses more believable. Phil pushes them back up the bridge of his nose and settles more comfortably on the bench. His earpiece buzzes steadily, the comms currently silent. Over the top of his newspaper, he eyes the building the mark is set to leave from. He never once glances in Ward’s direction, who is eating lunch at a nearby café with Skye.

Well actually, Phil thinks wryly, Ward is probably sipping at a glass of water while Skye chows down on a hamburger and tries to engage him in conversation. She’d been perusing the menu on her phone before the Bus had even landed, squealing about getting fast food after a few weeks of Bus food. It’s a far cry from the girl a few missions prior who would’ve been made five seconds into a stakeout. Though Phil is willing to bet Wade might see his tutelage as perhaps _too_ effective in getting Skye to act natural.

A man sits down on the bench next to Phil. Phil confirms he isn’t carrying before returning to his surveillance. But then, unbidden, Phil’s eyes return to the man. Something is off, deep in his gut he feels it—the man isn’t carrying a gun, but he isn’t carrying anything. No briefcase, no backpack, not so much as a bottle of water. He’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt that couldn’t conceal any weapons even if he wanted to. He turns to Phil and Phil realizes two things as their eyes meet: 1) this man is actually very likely a teenager, eighteen or nineteen at most and 2) this kid knows exactly who he is.

  
“Hello Phil,” the boy says familiarly, a British accent marking his words. Phil is too seasoned an agent to stiffen, but it is a close thing. To the world, Phil Coulson is dead, but this kid is not surprised to see him. If anything, he seems to have been expecting him. So Phil does what he does best when he’s confused: he smiles.

“I’m sorry. I don’t believe we’ve met,” Phil says. Annoyingly it’s not a lie. The kid’s hair is pitch black, possibly dyed, no evidence of a wig. His eyes are a rare sort of green, unlikely to be faked either. Phil thinks back to his interactions with MI6, if there’s an agent that could be this kid’s parent. He comes up with a few names, but Phil Coulson is dead to every foreign intelligence agency, without exception.

For whatever this kid’s worth, he’d make a lousy spy. He’s sitting right in the crosshairs of the cameras they have trained on the space. If Fitzsimmons are paying attention, they will be running face recognition and Ward will be on alert. He’ll have a name in minutes.

“My name is Harry,”—Well that works too—“But you should already know that.” He tilts his head to the side playfully as if teasing an old friend, but his eyes are cold.

“Sorry,” Phil says, smile never wavering. “It’s been a long day.”

“I’m sure it has,” Harry murmurs. He places his hands on his knees and rocks back. “If you truly don’t remember me, Phil, then it would appear we have nothing more to talk about.” And then, as Phil watches, he deliberately nods in the direction of Ward and Skye’s table.

“I believe your man needs you,” he says amicably. On cue, Phil’s comm buzzes to life.

“He’s on the move,” Simmons directs at his ear. Phil can’t help it. He looks to the entrance of the building and there is the mark, exiting. In that time, Harry manages to completely vanish.

“I said stay here, Skye. Coulson, I’m going in at three o’clock.”

  
Phil sighs, and makes a choice. “Copy that. Keep a close distance, we don’t want to lose this one.”

* * *

 

Hours later the team reconvenes on the bus and debriefs. As they all leave to get some much-needed sleep, Phil quietly calls Simmons back. Only May notices, but she mustn’t think much of it because she leaves too.

“Yes Sir?” Simmons says, hands clasped behind her back.

“I was wondering if you could run facial on that kid at the bench. The one who was sitting next to me,” Phil says.

Phil has read Simmons file, as he did everyone’s prior to taking them on. Simmons was described in her academy report as “endlessly energetic” and “enthusiastic”. In person, Phil has observed this more than once. Simmons bounces on the balls of her feet more often than she realizes, ready to take on the whatever’s next. That’s why Phil realizes something is wrong when she stops, halfway through moving to the mainframe.

“I’m sorry, Sir? The kid sitting next to you?” she smiles pleasantly enough, but her brow is furrowed.

“Just a precautionary measure, I get that’s he young but something about him just seemed off.”

“Um, I’m sorry Sir, I don’t recall there _being_ a child sitting next to you,” Simmons says, distressed. Her eyes light up and she claps her hands, “Ah, do you mean from yesterday’s mission perhaps?”

Phil stares at her. “You know what, don’t worry about it Simmons.”

“Are you sure Sir? I’d be happy to look he or she up. Better safe than sorry I always say!” Simmons chuckles.

“No, that’s alright. However, I’d like the cams from yesterday and today on my desk by 8am tomorrow.”

“Of course Sir!” he can see she wants to ask why, but Simmons is still a little too new, too fresh to question her superior. He nods to her sternly and leaves.

* * *

 

Coulson pulls up the footage and Harry is…not there.

  
He fast forwards and rewinds, but the kid is nowhere to be found. He checks the time signature and it’s a match. Phil pours over it. He tries to find evidence of tampering but there is none. He sees himself, he sees Ha…

…

…no. There’s no one there. He checks the surrounding cams just to see if any of them catches a glimpse of him leaving. Nothing. If the cameras didn’t see Harry, then Fitzsimmons didn’t see Harry. Skye’s back was to him, but Phil was within Ward’s sight at all times. If he’d seen Phil talking to Harry, he’d have come to him by now to discuss it. So would May, who was stationed on a rooftop nearby.

As far as physical evidence is concerned, Harry doesn’t exist.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not so much that Phil drops the Harry thing so much as he has no choice. He has a 3D map printed of the space around the bench and has checked possible avenues of exit, but none work within the time constraints without having some sort of powers involved. He discreetly sends some agents to conduct scans on the area, but there is no chemical trace of powers. He follows his MI6 leads as far as he can short of hacking into confidential files, which, considering he is trying to look into the family and possible minors of agents is not very far. He could ask Skye for her help of course, but considering how there’s no proof the encounter even happened, in a situation where there should be _an enormous amount of proof that it happened_ , Phil has decided to keep this whole thing close to the vest.

Considering he has no footage to run facial recognition on, finding one British kid named Harry is basically a wild goose chase. As time goes on and no announcements of his “aliveness” break to anyone important, Harry becomes less of a priority and the Clairvoyant becomes much more of one.

He would’ve figured it out eventually. He likes to think so, anyway. But the dumb “theta-wave” machine that makes him feel like someone is shoving his brain against a grater and rubbing like it’s Parmesan cheese beats him to the punch.

Raina persuades him to get in the Hydra memory machine. Well, it’s more like he’s getting sick of not knowing what Tahiti really is. She croons to relax and remember what happened, what really happened, which is easier to say when no one is using your brain to top off a plate of pasta.

At first Tahiti is just as magical as he remembers it. But it starts to go wrong. The massage woman turns into an unknown doctor and the guy with the daiquiris turns into Dr. Streiten, and Phil is begging them to let him die. The top of his head is on fire. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows it’s because air is pressing against his exposed cerebrum. It’s fucking terrifying, fucking painful, and fucking Harry is there.

He’s not wearing scrubs like the others, but his expression is just as grim. His arms are crossed, hands clenched into fists at either side. As the machine moves around Phil’s head, he catches Harry flinch and look away.

“Let me die,” he pleads, this time to Harry. “Please, just let me die.”

Harry’s expression softens, and he opens his mouth as the memory blurs and Phil’s cries grow louder, until he can’t tell if he’s only pleading in the memory or real life as well. Skye is clutching at him as he opens his eyes, whimpering. His skull is sharply aching, as if it was cracked open only five seconds ago.

When he’s recovered enough to track down Dr. Streiten, he wishes the man would protest telling him just so he could hold a gun up to his head, maybe crack the butt of it against his temple just once. But the man folds like a wet piece of paper. The knowledge of what he had done must’ve been eating him up inside. He tells Phil as much as he knows, as much as he has speculated.

“You had lost your will to live. We tried to give it back,” Dr. Streiten says simply. “I’m sorry Agent Coulson. I truly am.”

“There was a man in the operating room,” Phil says. “Harry. What was his role in all of this?”

“All of your surgeons were individually selected. We had no interactions with each other beyond that room.”

“He wasn’t a surgeon,” Phil snaps, “He was the only person not wearing scrubs.”

Dr. Streiten shakes his head. “There was no man like that.”

“You’re lying,” Phil says calmly, but with a hint of malice. “Want to try that again?”

Dr. Streiten pales. “I swear, there was no man like that. Only the top S.H.I.E.L.D. surgeons were allowed inside that room during the operations. It wouldn’t be unusual for you to have hallucinated during the procedure. You say his name was Harry?” The doctor turns back, but Phil has already slid out of the car.

Phil gets back to the Bus and sits at his desk in the dark, trying to process everything. He was dead for days. Fury brought him back, on someone else’s order. They replaced his memories and kept the truth from him.

_“If you truly don’t remember me, Phil, then it would appear we have nothing more to talk about.”_ But whosever order it was, it wasn’t Harry’s. First of all, he’s a kid, which would make him an unlikely ringleader. But secondly, he came to Phil as a test. He wanted to see if Phil remembered him or not. Harry is a part of the memories, the ones that were replaced. He was there at some point when Phil died.

That, or he’s a hallucination after all.

Phil’s suddenly aware of someone else in the room with him.

“Hello again, Phil. Ah,” Harry says, sitting across from him. He eyes the gun pointing at his forehead with distaste. “That’s quite unnecessary.”


	3. Chapter 3

“How the hell did you get in here?” Phil says, taking the safety off of the gun. “How the hell did you get on this _plane_?” He says, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice. 

“This office is soundproof, but not against bullets,” Harry says. “You pull that trigger and Melinda May comes running.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the plan,” Phil says dryly, masking his surprise. The kid knows his people. The kid seems to know everything. 

Harry smiles, leaning back in his seat. “You don’t want Agent May here, Phil.” 

Phil’s grip tightens. “Sure I do. She’s my best interrogator.”

“That wasn’t a threat, Phil. You don’t want Agent May coming to the rescue because you’re still not sure if I’m real.” 

“There’s one way to find out,” Phil says, leveling his gun. Harry laughs, putting his hands up. Then he adjusts, leaning forward, until the gun is aiming right at his chest. Both men stare at each other. Phil debates his options for only a moment, because he knows he can’t shoot. The end result is May and whoever else comes running finds out about Tahiti, whether from Harry or himself, and he can’t have that. He trusts May, but the team can’t be allowed to know about this. Not yet. 

“Stand up,” Phil says. Surprisingly, Harry does so. “Take out your weapons.”

“I don’t have any,” Harry says, hands up. He’s wearing the same outfit as the first time, a white t-shirt and jeans that leaves no room for the telltale bulge of a gun. Just in case, he makes Harry raise his jean bottoms and lift his shirt. 

“Wait, stop,” Phil says. Harry keeps his shirt lifted, raising an eyebrow. In the center of his chest is a patch of raised skin unlike anything Phil has ever seen. It’s not quite a bullet hole, not quite a burn. It’s…similar to Phil’s.

“What is that?” Phil asks.

“A scar,” Harry says, lowering his shirt.

“What’s it from?” 

“You’re not the only man with unusual scars, Phil,” Harry says, eyes cold. 

“Another thing you shouldn’t know about me. Why.” Phil says, fist clenching. A sudden rush of understanding takes him. “You’re him. The clairvoyant.”

Harry’s nose wrinkles, and for the first time he seems genuine. “No. I’m not. As far as I’m concerned, clairvoyance is a game of luck. Some of us are luckier than others, sure, but it doesn’t make us psychic.” Harry sighs. “The future is not as easily determinable as we’d like to think. For instance,” he taps at his chest, at his scar. The same place where Phil was pierced clean through and bled out, dead for days. 

“You were there. When they brought me back.” Phil says. 

“I was,” Harry says, the only straight answer he’s given so far. “And I’m here now. To warn you, Phil, don’t keep looking into this.”

“That’s suitably creepy,” Phil says. “A little less threatening coming from a barely post-pubescent, but creepy.” 

“The good doctor said it himself,” Harry says, no longer smiling. “Your mind can’t handle this sort of trauma. If you keep searching, keep _remembering_ ,” he places his hands on Phil’s desk, “you’re going to go mad.”

“As touching as your concern for me is,” Phil says, “I don’t buy it. What’s in it for you?” Phil stares him down. “Who are you Harry?”

Harry sighs again. “I’m a symptom Phil. And if you want me to go away, you need to stop making yourself sick.”

“Clearly you weren’t at my latest physical. I’m doing better than ever.”

“Yes,” Harry says. “So were the others,” He mutters bitterly. 

The bottom drops out of Phil’s stomach. “What are you talking about? What others?” He demands. His hand goes to his gun. “What others?”

“’Nick Fury moved heaven and earth to save you’, Phil Coulson,” Harry sneers. Phil realizes with a jolt that he is quoting Dr. Streiten. “It takes a compassionate man to move the heavens. But also a foolish one, to think they weren’t there for a reason.” 

“Director Fury is a good man—”

“—Except you don’t know if you believe that anymore. Otherwise you wouldn’t be questioning everything he’s done, every time you’ve blindly trusted him, every order you’ve ever taken on his command. You want to know more about your death, Phil, go ahead,” Harry says, anger tempering every word. “Put yourself back in the grave you so rightfully deserve. Just be careful not to take that team of yours with you.”

“You don’t—“ 

“Coulson!” May says, slamming the door open. “Fury’s on the line for you, says he’s been trying for a while now. What are you doing in here?”

“I—“ Phil looks over at Harry, who of course isn’t there. “I—“

“Coulson, you okay?” May says slowly.

“I’m fine,” Phil snaps. May raises an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I just. I’m still a little out of it, I guess.”

“You heard FitzSimmons,” May says. “This’ll pass. You want me to tell the Director to call back?” 

“No, no,” Phil says quickly. “I’ve got it.” May nods once then closes the door, still eying him carefully. Yeah, he’s definitely going to have to tell her the truth. Minus the ‘I-may-or-may-not-be-but-probably-am-wildly-hallucinating-teenagers’ bit.

Phil breathes for a second, and then reaches for the phone. He might not be able to deal with Harry right now, but he can deal with this. And despite all of Harry’s warnings, he’s getting his goddamn file.


	4. Chapter 4

_“Put yourself back in the grave you so rightfully deserve. Just be careful not to take that team of yours with you.”_

“You’re saying there’s nothing to be done?” Phil asks blankly. The doctor pauses.

“I’m saying you need to call her family. Get them here as soon as possible.”

“…We’re her family,” Phil says. His hands are limp at his sides. Powerless.

“In that case I’m very sorry,” the doctor says earnestly. He stares at her back, urging her to offer up one last morsel of hope. Beside him, May storms out of the room.

“ _Just be careful not to take that team of yours with you.”_ Against his will, Harry’s words continue to ring in his head. This has nothing to do with that! He wasn’t even investigating his death when Skye got shot. He wasn’t even _there_ when she got shot.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He wasn’t _there._ He didn’t protect her _._ He told this twenty-five year old girl that he could make her into a spy, and then he sent her out into the field with minimal training and _no protection._ He didn’t even make her wear a vest for Christ’s sake! What was he _thinking?_

“This is my fault,” he murmurs quietly into the waiting room. Simmons is quietly sobbing. “This is my fault.” He says again, more firmly.

“Sir…” Ward says, but it’s half-hearted. He blames Phil too, he can tell. He won’t even look him in the eyes. It is Phil’s fault Skye got shot. It’s just like Harry said…but maybe Harry is the key to fixing all of this.

Phil storms out. He arranges Skye’s transportation back onto the bus and intends to grab his file from the safe immediately upon his return, but he’s sidetracked by May’s decision to beat the shit out of Quinn, a decision he can’t say he condemns.

Although Quinn deserves nothing less than the execution he wanted to give Skye, he’s spared by Phil’s desire to get going. Getting to Bethesda is what’s important now. There will be time for Quinn’s punishment later, after Skye is healed. And she will be healed. Phil is going to fix this. He’s going to fix her.

But as quickly as he’s made his decision, things start to fall apart.

“Is that why you shot Skye? Because she saw what Cybertek delivered?” Phil asks Quinn in the interrogation room. Garrett shifts aggressively. Quinn almost snorts, but flinches in pain instead. Good.

“No. I shot Skye because that’s what the clairvoyant told me to do.”

“ _Just be careful not to take that team of yours with you.”_ No. No, no, no, no, no!

“This is still about me.” Phil says slowly. Skye got shot because of him. Because of Tahiti. Harry was right.

“So shooting the girl forces you to figure it all out—“ Garrett start

“—so the clairvoyant can finally see.” Quinn finishes smugly.

“Or you let the girl die.” Garrett says. He’s considering it, Phil can see. He storms out of the interrogation room into more bad news.

“The place we are going, the doctors who treated you?” May says, form stiff, “They don’t exist.” Phil listens to May and Simmons spout out reasons why this is unwise, but in the end May still agrees that they should do everything humanly possible to save Skye. But that it might give the clairvoyant exactly what he wants.

Or will it? They don’t need the place as much as they need the procedures. They need information, and wherever he was brought back to life is the best way to get it. But if someone else had that information…

As May leaves his office Phil locks the door behind her.

“HARRY!” He shouts at nothing. “HARRY!”

“I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! HELP ME FIX THIS! HELP ME SAVE HER!” He stares at the door. “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t deserve to die, not like this. Help me. …Please.”

“You realize this is the exact opposite of what I recommended you do?” Harry asks, sitting in his chair. Phil wastes no time.

“What did they use to bring me back? Where did they do it?”

“Why? So you can put that poor girl through what you went through?” Harry asks, practically vibrating with what Phil suspects is suppressed anger. He distantly notes that Harry is talking as if he isn’t almost a decade younger than Skye. “You want to disregard everything that I have told you?”

“You haven’t told me anything!” Phil says, throwing his hands up. “You tell me to stay away but don’t give me a straight answer as to why, then expect me to trust you!”

“Just because you are fine now, Phil, does not mean you will remain that way. I meant it when I said you are sick.”

“I understand that. I’m hallucinating you, aren’t I?” Phil says. Harry blinks, shocked at Phil’s easy acceptance. “I’m not saying I’m okay with it. But you know what happened that day. You can save Skye, and the clairvoyant will never know how we did it. You aren’t a problem, Harry, you’re the solution.”

Harry sighs. “I said I was a symptom, Phil. Not the disease.”

“What other choice do I have?” Phil cries. “She doesn’t deserve to die! Not like this! Not when I can save her!”

“No one dies because they deserve it. Nor do they die by some higher being’s design, clairvoyant or otherwise. They die because they are dying, and then they are dead.” Harry says. “I will not help you Phil. Don’t try to save her. Not like this.”

And then he vanishes, right in front of Phil’s eyes. Phil grabs a paperweight off his desk and hurls it at the same space. It hits the wall opposite and clatters to the ground.

“Sir! Sir I think we found something!” Simmons says, not much later, banging on the door. “Sir!”

From the second Phil enters into the Guesthouse, he knows he shouldn’t be here. Nothing good could possibly come from a place like this, but he won’t stop. He’s going to save Skye. Something in here has to work, has to be enough. Unlike him when he came here, she’s still alive. She still has a chance.

They find the GH.325, and he feels hope. He sends Fitz on his way, but Phil has to find out what’s in the T.A.H.I.T.I. vault. What is GH.325, and where is it coming from? The answer is worse than anything he ever could’ve expected.

Harry says nothing, standing quietly beside him. He’s already said all that he could. They both stare at half of an alien corpse. When Harry looks at Phil, his disappointment is clear. Phil leaves the room and stumbles down the hallway, where he meets Garrett.

“They took the drug up to Skye.”

“No. Don’t give it to her. The drug—They can’t give it to her!” Phil says. He says the same thing to Simmons as they stagger aboard the bus and into Skye’s med room, but it’s too late.

Skye stabilizes, and Phil sits at her bedside, watching her. Garrett has left, taking Quinn and Agent Triplett with him. The others are resting, finally, content with Skye’s newfound health. And Coulson is waiting. Unsure of what he’s waiting for, but waiting all the same.

Skye wakes up and recovers, and Phil realizes he can’t keep the truth from her. She deserves to hear it, deserves to know what has happened to her, and what might happen from here on out. He tries to get in touch with Fury but he is completely off the grid, and none of his contacts pan out. Sif arrives, seeking help for trapping an Asgardian version of a siren and a pain in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ass, but when it’s all over, May gives him a talking to and he tells her the truth.

“So what?” Skye asks. “We are alive. And you've had that stuff in you for... uh, some time now, and you're okay, right? Plus, you're not sprouting a pointy tail or anything, so bonus there.”

“I know nothing fazes you, but this should faze you. We are completely in the dark on this.” Phil snaps.

“That’s where we live,” Skye says, smiling slightly. At least they’re in the dark together, she tells him. Together. That word bounds around in his head, even as he leaves, having gotten Skye to agree to keep it a secret. A secret they are keeping together, bound by the alien liquid running through their veins.

But also bound by their death. Fitz points it out to Skye, a tidbit she lauds over everyone as if it’s something to legitimately brag about. Dead for two, three seconds. It’s what makes Phil realize their resurrection by GH.325 might not be the only thing they share.

Skye has recovered enough to be relocated to her room when he knocks on the door, hurriedly.

“Hey, A.C., what’s up?” She says, cracking it open. Having rushed here, he has not take any actual time to plan out his line of questioning.

“Um, I just wanted to touch base. Make sure you aren’t feeling anything from, uh, you know.” He stammers out. It takes a minute for Skye to get it.

“Ohhh. Uh. No. I’m doing good,” she says. He nods, and she nods back. She leans against the door, cocking her head at him. “Um, is that it?”

“You know you can talk to me right?” Phil asks. Her lips quirk up in that way she does when she receives affection from anyone on the team, surprised and happy.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” she says. He smiles back, a little thinly.

“I mean it. About anything. If anything strikes you as strange, or unusual, _anything—“_

“—I’ll come to you. I got it A.C.,” Skye interrupts, “you’ll be the first to know. I promise.”

Phil wishes he could say more, but he can’t. Skye isn’t dumb, she’ll figure out something’s up if he keeps pressing the issue. And he doesn’t want her to, not if she’s doing totally okay. He just has to trust her.

Skye watches Phil walk away fondly, if not a little bemusedly. “Weeeird,” she mutters to herself. She closes her door and puts a hand on her hip, facing her bed.

“Sorry about that,” she says, shrugging. “You were saying?”

Harry smiles. "Oh, it's not a problem," he says. "No problem at all."


	5. Chapter 5

            When Skye enters her room five days after she died, Harry is sitting on her bed. His eyes track her movements with a sort of precision she’s come to note in secret agents, but simultaneously he’s far more relaxed than she’s ever seen Ward, Coulson, or May.

            “Hello Skye,” he says pleasantly.

            “Whoa. Hey,” Skye says, eyes bulging. Her door clicks shut behind her. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

            Harry blinks. “You remember me?” he asks carefully.

            Skye laughs awkwardly. “Am I not supposed to?”

            “There’s a lot of things you’re not supposed to do,” Harry says. He tilts his head and examines her. “And yet you manage to do them.” Skye struggles not to shift awkwardly under his gaze.

            “Is this the part where you say there’s something about me that you just can’t put your finger on?” She asks deadpan, “Because grim reapers aren’t exactly my type. Plus you’re kinda young so...”

            Skye is surprised to note Harry actually looks caught off guard. His expression rapidly closes again. Can grim reapers blush? “I’m not a grim reaper,” he says stiffly.

            “Right. You said that before. But you kind of are?” Skye says. She holds a hand up. “Okay, hear me out. You were basically ushering me into the afterlife except everything got all wonky and I came back. Doesn’t that make you, by definition, my grim reaper? Though I am sorta confused, I mean, shouldn’t my grim reaper be like, American? There’s no American grim reaper? Or no American whatever-the-hell-you-are?”

            “Am I not relatable enough for you?” Harry asks dryly, arms crossed. But Skye has gotten used to annoying people until they’re brainwashed into thinking they actually like her, (cough, Ward, cough), so she’s pretty sure she’s correct in saying Harry is fighting back a smile.

            “No, I’m not, like, racist. I just…” she gestures/flails at him. Harry raises an eyebrow and she sighs, collapsing into her desk chair. She points an accusing finger at him. “Don’t think I don’t notice how you’re not answering my questions.”

            “There’s no American whatever-the-hell-I-am,” Harry says patiently. “I’m afraid I’m one of a kind.”

            Skye sits up a bit straighter. “Really?” She’s not really asking.

            “Really,” Harry affirms nonetheless.

            “So…” Skye starts. She grips the edge of her seat until her knuckles turn white. “Whatever-the-hell-you-are…What are you doing here?” Her throat is suddenly dry.

            “I’m here because you died Skye. And then you came back.”

            Skye tries to go for relaxed, but she can’t. She feels like prey. “But people get resuscitated all the time.” She points out, trying to smile. It comes out as more of a grimace. She tries to remember if she has anything she can use as a weapon. Can you hurt whatever the hell Harry is?

            “Yes,” Harry says. “But I don’t meet those people, because they don’t die.”

            Skye swallows. “I mean, technically they do,” she says.

            “Only for a moment, and not really. I was sending you on to the next life when you got pulled back. Those who die for moments don’t get that sort of treatment, because their visit to that plane, the one you were on, is always meant to be temporary. The people who are slated to survive, survive. Those who are doomed to die, die. You died. For good. Your friends attempted to resuscitate you and they failed.” Harry says.

            “So what,” Skye says, “you’re telling me I’m really dead?” Against her will, her voice cracks. “I don’t feel like a zombie.” She’s got a pen in her back pocket. Maybe she can go for the eyes. No, maybe she should go for the door instead. Call for help…

            “You _were_ really dead.” Harry shrugs. “Now not so much.”

            Skye looks him dead in the eye, with a look that she hopes promises she won’t go down without a fight. “So what. You here to take me back?”

            “What?” Harry says. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. “No, Skye. I’m not. I’m not some sort of villain.”

            Skye sputters. “Excuse me! That seemed pretty villain monologue-y to me! You’re practically looming right now—“ “I’m _sitting_ ,” Harry murmurs, annoyed, “—Not that I’m complaining! Totally fine with not being taken back.”

            The both of them stare at each other in silence. Harry seems at a loss for words. He gets up, running his hands down the thighs of his jeans.

            “I’m happy for you Skye, I am. But…” Harry’s eyes are solemn. “There are consequences to these actions.”

            “So you came to warn me?” Skye asks incredulously.

            “No. What’s done is done.” Harry sighs, looking more human than ever. It’s a far cry from the patient, removed teenager that had tried to guide her to the afterlife. “I came to ask you for your help.”

            Someone knocks on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you have asked if Harry is going to help Skye and the others. Right now, Harry's got his own agenda. How he acts, both in actions and words, are on behalf of that agenda. Now if someone could sway him away from it... ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Harry. Am I or am I not an apple?” Skye asks, low and dangerous.

            “You want me to _what?_ ” Skye asks, staring at Harry.

            “I don’t want, I _need_ you to—“ 

            “I heard what you said!” Skye says incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding. How the hell am I supposed to stop people from finding out about what brought me back to life? More importantly, why the hell would I want to? It saved my life! It could save others!”

            “Because you know where it came from.” Harry says. Skye stiffens. “That man, Phillip Coulson, he already told you didn’t he? The origin source is another being’s blood. Are you willing to wage war on another humanoid species in order to prolong human life?” 

            “There are more of them?” Skye asks, swallowing. Harry nods. “There are. It’s not a synthetic compound. It’s blood, Skye. Are you really going to permit genocide? Because that is what will happen should people find out about the origin of your miracle cure. The massacre will be on your head.”

            “Okay, okay! I get it,” Skye says, huddling in on herself. “I’ve seen _Avatar_.” Harry stares at her blankly. She throws her hands up. “Seriously? You don’t know what _Avatar_ is? All the knowledge in the universe but nothing about James Cameron?” 

            “I’ve never been particularly well-versed in pop culture,” Harry says dryly.

           “Okaaay, well it’s the same premise, humans waging war on blue aliens. Except the humans in the film want their resources, not their actual blood. Wait.” Skye stiffens. She glances down at her arm, almost reflexively. “Blood. Simmons has been taking samples of my blood.”

            “I know. I need you to destroy them, and erase the research she’s already compiled.” 

            “She might not be—“ Skye protests.

            “She is. Actively.”

             Skye starts to pace. “So I tell her to stop! Tell her the truth! Simmons is doing this because she wants answers, once she has them she’ll destroy the samples herself—“

             “Actually she won’t,” Harry says. “A lot of sacrifices are made in the name of science. Of course they don’t always seem like sacrifices, or even large moral quandaries. Miss Simmons might convince herself one little blood sample cannot somehow enable humankind to reach another cosmos and then commit mass murder, but I’m not willing to let her find out. Though honestly, I’d be a bit more curious with regards to Mr. Fitz, he’s actually the much more compassionate of the two.”

             “And why you can’t just zap in and destroy the samples?” Skye asks testily. “It’s not like the security is exactly light, especially for me.”

             “The less I interfere the better. I’m not really supposed to interact with the living world—you already know who I am Skye, so the damage is done there, but death is supposed to be a mystery for a reason,” Harry smiles, but there is nothing pleasant about it. “It can make people go a little _off_.” 

            “So I’m going to go… _off?_ As in, rotten? Like a fucking apple?” Skye asks. Harry shrugs, which is far from comforting.

            “Harry. Am I or _am I not_ an apple?” Skye asks, low and dangerous.

            “You’re not,” Harry says quickly, catching on to her building hysterics, “You’re not an apple Skye. I said it _can_ hurt people, not that it will. This is uncharted territory here.” He smiles faintly, almost grinning as he stiffly raises his chin. “I don’t deign to talk to just anyone, you know.”

            “Wow,” Skye says after a minute, slowly, taking the obvious out. “I feel so honored.” The smile disappears and Harry looks away, uncomfortable. For an all-knowing death- _related_ being, Harry is kind of awkward. He stands up abruptly.

             “You’re going to do it, right?” he asks. He’s firm and it’s not really a question, but it still seems a far cry from the boy whom she thought was going to drag her back to death, regardless of her kicking and screaming.

              Skye takes him in. At some point she has sat back down in her desk chair. She realizes, now, she’s not afraid of him. She’s wary and frustrated, but not afraid. She’s also been very recently _shot_ , thank you very much, even if that alien blood gave her such a boost her recovery has been the equivalent of getting a paper cut and then deciding to drink three cans of red bull. So even though she still kind of really wants to be a _super duper secret agent_ who goes on _super duper secret missions,_ she also logically knows she really _shouldn’t._

               But logic has never been the driving force in Skye’s life. Logic would’ve demanded she stay in foster care instead of going on the run. Logic would’ve demanded she stay under the radar, instead of hacking into a government database. Logic would’ve demanded she never go near that mansion after Quinn, and instead wait for backup.

              Logic would’ve kept her from SHIELD, from Ward and FitzSimmons and Agent May and P.C. Logic would’ve kept her from finding out that a team of SHIELD agents and an entire village sacrificed themselves to keep her safe. 

              And logic is not about to keep her from the one person who might know _why._

             “Okay, I’ll help,” Skye says lightly, crossing her arms. The way Harry looks at her has her biting back a grin. It’s the same sort of resignation that Ward addresses her with. The face that tells her she’s not fooling him at all, but he’s reluctantly game anyway.

            “But,” she pauses dramatically. Harry waits patiently, only slightly taking the fun out of it. “I want something in return.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late -- I get very into making sure this is as true to canon as possible, which means I watch the episodes over and over -- which can get pretty tedious, not gonna lie. 
> 
> Also in case it isn't obvious, there's a lot going on here on Harry's end that he's not disclosing. Plus I started this when the 5th season was still airing, and I intend to keep it going to the end of the series, so -- let's just say I had to rewrite this chapter more than once. 
> 
> Fact: When Skye said "James Cameron", Harry totally thought she was talking about the Prime Minister of the UK for longer than he'd like to admit.


End file.
